Why Are We Ignoring a Blatant Cry For Help?

We want to believe that we are morally “good”, but when the crap actually hits the metaphorical—or literal—fan, sometimes we fail. One common way this so frequently happens is The Bystander Effect: the social psychological phenomenon that when others are present, we assume they will rise to the occasion to help a victim, so we personally don’t have to. This concept is usually applied to real life circumstances: someone passes out on the street, and we assume another pedestrian will be the one to call 911 or deliver CPR, but when everyone thinks this, nobody offers help. As we skyrocket into a more and more digital age, we can see this concept apply on the Internet or through private messages (texts, Facebook messenger, or DM’s for our more sleazy readers).

The Bystander Effect was heavily researched and labeled in the 1960’s, but the fault in humans has existed long before then. This is not to say we are all inherently horrible people who want to shove the responsibility onto others. There are several factors that can come into play when given the opportunity to help. Consider the following example: if an old colleague from college who lives across the country incessantly calls you because they’re having a psychotic break, would it be realistic to buy a plane ticket to personally deliver them to a psych ward? The reality is that you’d probably assess your mutual friends, or reach out to their closest family member and try to get someone physically near them to intervene. So it wasn’t that you felt the need to shrug off the responsibility, as much as degrees of separation and the level of intimacy towards that person affected what you could do about their situation.

So where is this lengthy Psych 101 lesson going?

To be concerned about Post Malone’s sanity, of course. The musician has been accumulating face tattoos at the averagely fast-pace for a modern day rapper with too much money, but one of his most recent pieces caught my eye. The 23-year-old rapper recently inked “Always Tired” across his face, with one word resting under an eye.

PWNED

If you’ve ever wondered why ladies wear sleep masks to bed, it’s to not only to avoid under eye bags but also the possibility of that we would sleep walk into a tattoo parlor.

While the face tattoo trend is taking rich white boys by storm, this one seems more like a blatant cry for help rather than an artistic expression of their “fuck me money.” What’s even more concerning is that we were once a nation that eagerly watched Britney Spears unravel with a shaved head wielding an umbrella at invasive paparazzi, and we all had opinions about that. We labeled her an “unfit mother,” and caused a domino effect of breakdowns through people like Chris Crocker—bet you haven’t heard that name in a while—for shaving her head under stress, but we’re ignoring the very permanent cheekbone message? Need I remind everyone that hair grows back? Are we just desensitized to erratic celebrity actions, or do we assume a woman would lose her mind while a guy would just make a mildly questionable choice?

Due to the over seven degrees of separation—and maybe a pending restraining order—that stand between Austin Post and myself, I can’t just text him and ask “U OK? *sweating from brow emoji*”. I can only hope that those closest to him aren’t just “Yes Men” (or Yes Women, I know, it’s 2018 and women can be equally as complicit), and that they ask the necessary questions. At the end of the day, none of us want to be simple bystanders but due to circumstance, here we will stay: behind our laptops writing humor pieces and recording videos of us cry-screaming to leave Britney alone until a real friend to the A-lister can voice real concern.

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